


Lavender and Napalm

by FarielUniverse



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: 1960s, Alternate Universe, FlowerChild!Credence, Grindlewald may come in, I'm in Gredence hell, M/M, No Mary Lou Barebone, No idea how many chapters this is gonna be, Tina Adopted Credence, Veteran!Percival, first fic in a looong time, i did the math alright, idk man it was the 60s, possible drug use, the ages and shit worked out
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-03-12 06:29:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13541673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FarielUniverse/pseuds/FarielUniverse
Summary: Percival Graves is not a really likable person. He is blunt, and cold, and distant. After the second world war ended and left him with an injured hip and a slight limp, there wasn't much for him to do. He had a standing appointment at the VA twice a week for physical therapy, even years after the injury, and it was one of the only times that he left his house. And his life was calm, and routine....until he met one of the volunteers. Credence was like a breath of fresh air, although he wouldn't admit it. And the longer he was around the lavender scented wild child, the more alive he started to feel again.





	1. Something

Percival Graves was, by definition, not a very likable person. He couldn't count how many times he had been told that he was cold, or distant. Not that it really mattered to him. He was living his life as a sort of echo of who he used to be. Apparently that was what war did to you, especially if you did what he chose to do and joined up two years before the legal age. When he was sixteen he was all rage and hurt after the death of his parents. So he did the only thing he could think of. At sixteen, he enlisted, after lying about his age, and was sent off to fight in a war he had no business being in at that age. He was barely eighteen when it ended, stuck in a VA hospital with shrapnel in his side and an order for physical therapy for the rest of his life to keep mobility in his hip without surgery. 

And Graves did as he was told. He came home from the war broken and scarred, and locked himself away from the rest of the world for the most part. The horrors he had seen during the war still haunted him, even though it had been over twenty years since he last set food in a uniform. And he still help up with his physical therapy, twice a week at the local VA. He had a different therapist nearly every time, helping him go through stretches and exercises that were routine by now. He would come in, check in with the woman who was practically running the place by now, one Tina Goldstein. Over the years, he had gotten to have a sort of acquaintanceship with Tina, bordering on friendship. She kept him coming in, if he was honest. He was used to being on his own, but having someone familiar to talk to kept him grounded and gave him an excuse to get out of the house twice a week. 

Today was like any other. Percival came in, his usual frown on his face, an umbrella kept with him as the sky had begun to darken considerably.  From the breeze rolling in along with the clouds, it was going to be one hell of a thunderstorm. He let out a small hum as he moved to the desk to check in. As usual, Tina was there, sorting files with pretty impressive speed. He quirked an eye at her rather exasperated form, the woman glancing to the door every few moments. It wasn't until he actually cleared his throat that she even noticed that he was there. Her face flushed as she nearly dropped the papers, eliciting a soft sound that might have once been a chuckle from deep within the man as she started to check him in with a huff. 

"I apologize Mr. Graves. We've gotten another new doctor and I swear he has no idea what he's doing." She muttered as she quickly jotted things down and held the clipboard out for him to sign. He signed and nodded as he stretched, a small hum all the acknowledgement or greeting that he gave as he handed the clipboard back and made his way to the waiting room, as usual. He didn't talk much anymore, although if it was less busy, Tina would often bring him a cup of coffee from the back and talk with him for a while. He would talk about the bookstore that he had inherited from his parents but hardly visited, and she would talk about her sister and brother in law and their bakery, or about the boy she adopted years ago. The boy's name escaped him most of the time, but he was happy to hear her talk. 

Today, she seemed swamped, so he just moved to the waiting room and sat down, leaving his umbrella in the basket by the door and taking his usual chair in the corner, nodding in greeting to a few other veterans like him. All too old for the new war, but too young for the thoughts running through their minds, images of the past haunting them at every moment. They were always there, the death and destruction lurking like shadows dancing behind their eyes. It was worse at night for him, left alone with his thoughts. During the day he could go for walks, or open up the doors to his house and let the noises of the city drown out his thoughts. He had thought of getting a pet, but half the time he didn't have the energy to take care of himself, let alone another being. Percival had been given a record player, but he currently didn't have any records for it, so it went unused in his living room, as most things did. Percival pushed the thoughts from his head as he pulled his book out to wait for his name to be called. It would take a while, as usual, and he liked to be prepared. 

He had finished a chapter and a half when his name was finally called, dog earring the page like his mother had scolded him for and sliding the book back inside the pocket of his jacket as he moved to make his way back to the office. He only paused when he heard the low rumble of thunder coupled by the patter of rain against the window panes. He could practically smell the rain now, mixing with the scent of the hot asphalt after being under the unforgiving summer sun all day. The briefest flicker of a smile crossed his face before it was gone and he followed the nurse to the back for his therapy. As he passed the desk, there was a muttered string of curses from Tina as she noticed the rain, a string of words that could easily cause a sailor to blush. Percival let out the small grumbling chuckle again as he shook his head, continuing on and finding a quiet sort of piece as he let his thoughts drift to the sound of the rain against the building. 

It took little over an hour for Percival's therapy session to end. He left it with an ache in his hip due to the stretching and the rain as he made his way back to the front. He collected his umbrella and paused to make sure that he knew the time of his next session with Tina. As he was making his appointment, he turned his head to peer out into the rain and stood there frozen for far too long. 

Standing in the rain was the most enthralling being he had ever seen. The boy couldn't have been more than twenty, standing on the sidewalk with his head tilted back and arms outstretched, a sort of blissful expression on his face. He was wearing a loose white shirt with slight fringes at the bottom over a pair of low waisted jeans and a pair of what appeared to be woven sandals. Even from where he stood, Percival could make out every line and curve of the boy's body through the shirt that was both suctioned to his skin and hanging loose at the same time. Dark hair was plastered to his face and neck, a stark contrast to the pale skin the boy possessed. And then the boy straightened up, and met his gaze. Percival could have sworn that the boy's eyes were bearing into his very being, dark and intense as he finally made his way to enter. Percival was finally broken from his revelry as the boy entered, although he didn't pass up the chance to get a better look at him. Short than him, but not by too much, slender with lithe muscle, and he could see every line of the boy's figure, from the elegant neck to the dip in his collarbone, to the edges of his hips. 

Tina was the one to truly break him from his enthralled state. She let out a huff as she stood up, leaving her post at the desk to wrap a jacket around the boy's shoulders. It was then that it clicked for Percival, who the boy was. It must have been the boy that she adopted those years ago, who was supposedly in college. "Credence! You are going to catch your death of a cold standing out in the rain like that." She muttered as she shook her head, moving to lead the boy towards the back of the VA, calling out to another of the secretaries to take her place. Percival just nodded at them, moving to head home himself with knowledge of the boy's existence and his name. Credence. He brushed past the boy, hands touching for just a moment although he didn't stop. The one thing that clung to his thoughts as he moved to leave the VA was the soothing scent of lavender that clung to the air the boy had walked through. He let out a soft sigh as he opened up his umbrella outside and started his walk home. Credence was going to spell trouble for him. He could already feel it in his bones. Or perhaps that was just the rain causing him to ache.


	2. Get Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two weeks had passed since Percival met Credence, and the city was in the middle of a heat wave. Even though he planned on avoiding the younger man that had captured his attention, Credence made that incredibly difficult when he started to volunteer at the shelter on the days that Percival went for his physical therapy.

As much as Percival tried to put his thoughts of Credence and how the boy drew his attention behind him, it was proving to be harder than he thought. Every time he pushed the thoughts away, the image of the boy in the rain, clothes stuck to his skin, arms outstretched out to the sky appeared in his mind again and he had to start the process of banishing the thoughts from his head. Credence was unbelievably unattainable to him, and he knew it. Not only was he at least twenty years younger, but he was also the son of one of the few people he considered a friend. And if anyone found out that he was even attracted to the boy, both of their lives could be ruined. His...it didn't matter that much. He had already put his time in for what he wanted to do with his life, but Credence was young and had his whole life ahead of him. Percival wasn't even going to try to get in the way of that. So even though the intrusive thoughts continued, he ignored them.

For two weeks at least, Percival ignored them. He didn't see Credence around the clinic, so he hoped that the boy had decided to stay away, and the thoughts would fade for now, and he could get back to his usual routine. A trip to the bookstore that he owned once a week to sign a few checks and look over orders, make sure that the workers were still happy and they didn't need anything. It was a nice source of income for him, and certainly made it easier for him to transition back after he got back from the war. When he was still healing up most of the time, and stuck in a damned wheelchair, the bookstore had become his solace, wheeling around the shelves and doing whatever he could to help out. Now it was more of a hobby and an excuse to get him out of the house to do more than just wander the streets and watch people. He knew that his life was incredibly dull but after the war, dull was a good thing. 

His hopes that Credence vacating his life and his mind were dashed though, as he walked into the clinic on a particularly sweltering day for New York, and spotted the long-limbed boy milling around the waiting room and passing out coffees and what looked like pastries. Percival made a sound in the back of his throat as he spotted him, tearing his eyes away from his form as he moved to check in with Tina as he usually did. She seemed far more at ease this time around as she had the last time he had seen her. No doubt because she had been waiting on Credence then. He nodded as he took the clipboard and signed the paperwork before handing it back and moving to settle into the waiting room in a position as far away from Credence as possible. The farther away he was, the less he would find his eyes drawn to the boy time after time. That was the theory at least, and it proved to be entirely wrong.

Percival settled in his seat, slight pain bubbling up in his hip. He had spent the day before just wandering around the city, picking up some groceries and just...walking. It had been a bit too much, causing his hip to be sore this morning. Which was going to make his physical therapy all that much more annoying. He had brought a book, as he always did, cracking it open to where he had stopped reading the night before, and trying to lose himself in the pages of the book. That proved rather difficult, as he ended up rereading the same paragraph over and over again, glancing up every now and then as Credence moved around and spoke to the other vets that were waiting. 

He was actually reading his book when Credence came up to him, glancing up as the boy spoke. "You must be Mr. Graves. Ma said that you always bring a book with you." Credence stated easily, before holding out the paper cup of coffee to him. "Black coffee, we're all out of cream and sugar for the time being." Percival felt his mouth run dry at the thought of actually speaking to Credence, as absurd as it was. The boy was just as ethereal as he had thought he might be at first, pale skin practically glowing in the warm light streaming in through the windows, sunlight dancing in his eyes and the dust in the air. 

Percival cleared his throat lightly as he reached out to take the coffee from Credence. "Thank you." He finally answered, voice a bit gruff as he tore his eyes away from him and turned it back to his book. Credence just smiled at him, before turning to head back to the main desk to get back to helping Tina out. Percival watched him over the top of his cup every time he took a sip of the strong coffee, trying not to be too much of a creep. Credence was, by all means, the perfect son from what he could tell. Always smiling, happy to help his mother and helping her file old paperwork. He could hear some of the other veterans grumbling about what the hell 'a kid like that' was doing in a VA, and Percival was just as curious. But his curiosity would have to wait, as before too much longer he was called back to the office for his therapy.

When all was said and done, the pain in his hip wasn't that bad. Worse than what Percival had come in with, but it was still aching pretty bad. Bad enough that his limp was much more pronounced as he went to check out. He would probably have to use the cane that he detested for the next couple of days. He sighed as he moved towards the desk to check out, nodding at Tina, who bid her goodbyes as he made his way towards the door, book tucked under his arm. As he pushed against the door to leave, he heard a voice call out from behind him. "Goodbye Mr. Graves, have a safe trip home." Credence's voice lilted through the air, and Percival just let out a small grunt of acknowledgement before he continued on, leaving the building and heading towards his home. Once he was out of sight of the VA however, a small smile spread across his face. "Oh kid....you're going to be trouble." He muttered softly. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long to upload, there have been some crazy storms in my area. I know that this is all going to feel like a super long build, but believe me, it will definitely pay out! Just please be patient with me. Feel free to leave a comment or contact me through my tumblr at http://fariel-universe.tumblr.com


	3. Paperback Writer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Despite his best efforts to ignore Credence, Percival finds his thoughts wandering to the boy more often than they should, and a chance meeting leads to something he really wasn't prepared for.

Percival sighed as he shook his head, making his way towards the VA for his damned therapy. He had visited the bookstore that he owned the day before, and spent most of the day walking between shelves with one of the managers to make sure that everything was still organized and clean the way he liked it, and that had resulted with a dull, throbbing ache in his hip as soon as he woke up that morning. Which meant that this trip to therapy really wasn't going to go well. He had considered just skipping it and staying home for now, but the thoughts of a certain raven-haired boy popped into mind, and he found himself grumbling as he picked up his cane and made is way towards the brownstone building that held the VA offices.

It had been a few weeks since he had met Credence, and since then the boy was infuriatingly endearing. There hadn't been much talk about his volunteering, a few of the older veterans muttering about why a boy like him would want to volunteer in the VA in the first place, since he was helping veterans and therefor supporting the wars they fought in. Percival had been wondering the same thing, of course, but he was still prepared to shut the old codgers down if they started to get too hostile towards the other. But Credence had apparently been prepared for them to ask, just laughing and handing out the coffee, explaining that just because he didn't support the war didn't mean that he didn't care about the people that fought in them. And that he was really there to help out his mother, which was apparent. Tina was definitely calmer since the boy had started, and much more organized. 

Percival just shook his head again, as if trying to shake the thoughts of the boy from his mind. He knew that his mind shouldn't be filled with thoughts of a boy that was most likely at least half his age, but every time he tried to rid his mind of every trace of Credence he was just filled with images of the boy standing in the rain with his arms outstretched, or that warm smile, or the faint scent of lavender that had clung to him the first time that he met the other. And then he had to start all over again. Percival was hopeless, he knew that, as long as it came down to Credence. The boy was trouble, welcome trouble at that, which was the worst part. 

However, when Percival opened the door to the VA office and stepped in, instead of being greeted by the sight of Credence moving around the waiting room with coffee or magazines to pass out, the boy was nowhere to be found. He raised an eyebrow at that, pushing his disappointment down as he made his way to the counter to sign in. "Morning." he muttered to Tina, who just sighed as she handed over the forms for him to sign. 

"Good morning Mister Graves. You'll have to wait for a bit, hope you don't mind. My lovely son will be here later, but he decided to join the protests in the square today, leaving me without the extra pair of hands I'm used to." Tina muttered, mostly to herself as she looked through the files and papers on her desk, before huffing and leaning back in her chair. "Abernathy! What the hell is all this? I told you all of this needed to be filed already!" She called out as she got up to make her way to the back. 

Percival really didn't envy anyone that had to cross Tina Goldstein when she got like this. It was one thing to get her riled up, and a completely different thing to let her catch you not doing your job from what he had seen. He just nodded along as she walked off, filling out the forms and setting it down on the table for her as she made her way back to her desk, muttering about Abernathy being useless as she started to take care of things herself. Percival just sat back in his chair and pulled a book out of his coat, trying to swallow down the disappointment for not getting to see Credence first thing. Which was ridiculous. He had no claim on the boy, he couldn't tell him what he could or couldn't do. He just rather enjoyed being able to see the boy the two days of the week that he came in to the office. 

Like Tina said, there was a longer wait than he usually had to deal with, which led to him shifting uncomfortably in his seat the longer he was sitting down. His damned hip was acting up far more than he liked. Percival huffed as he closed his book and slid it back into his pocket before he stood, leaning on his cane as he started to walk through the waiting area. That was when sounds outside of the office started to get his attention. Another march against the war, that was for sure. He was turning away from the window to get some water at the water cooler when one of the voices in the crowd and chants stuck out to him. He frowned, turning back to the windows and taking a few steps forward, scanning the crowd until he found a flash of raven hair. 

Credence was seated on the shoulders of one of the other protesters, holding up one half of a banner, wearing a pair of shorts that only went to his mid thigh and a white tshirt that was smeared with colorful paint that seemed to be smeared over his skin as well. It took far too long for Percival to tear his eyes away from the sight of those long, slender legs perched on someone else's shoulders, gripping his cane tightly to the point that his knuckles were white. He was only brought out of his daze when Tina called his name and he finally snapped out of it enough to start to make his way to the back. Percival cleared his throat as he passed her, pausing for a moment. "I don't believe Credence is going to make it back today." He muttered, watching her peer out the window and let out a rather unladylike curse as she shook her head, before she got back to work. Percival sighed as he followed the nurse to the back, ready to just get his stretches over with and get back home before his hip started to ache too much. 


End file.
